Among search engine optimization professionals, one adage holds true: There are only a few ways to improve your SEO, but many ways to hurt it. One typical instance of SEO deterioration occurs during a site migration. Migrations entail substantial changes to your site; if these changes aren’t executed with SEO in mind, they can lead to significant problems.
Fortunately, this need not be the case. By embracing a proactive approach supported by a comprehensive checklist, your migration can sidestep SEO pitfalls and bolster your site’s performance. Here’s what you need to know.
A website migration is a change to a core part of your website’s infrastructure, usually by moving the site from one web hosting environment to another. The most common types of website migrations involve:
Since migrations, by definition, involve substantial changes to your site, they affect how search engines read your content. Regardless of the type of migration, it’s essential to consider SEO as part of your plan.
Site migrations take time and careful planning. Therefore, you should be judicious when there’s a clear need. Here are a few specific situations in which you should consider a migration:
When you launch a new brand or refresh your existing one, you often have to make substantial changes to your old website to reflect the updated image. Rebranding is an excellent opportunity to consider your website’s structure and needs, such as the navigation experience, the imagery, and the collections of products. Consider a migration if your new brand would benefit from a new website experience or content.
If you want to sell a subscription product, integrate with an analytics provider, or create a custom design, you need a CMS that can make that possible. Review your CMS ecosystem of apps and custom developers when considering migrating for functionality. Even if a CMS lacks native support for a specific functionality, you can often incorporate it as a third-party app.
These issues can manifest as slow loading times and search engines failing to crawl the site, resulting in frustrated customers. In these cases, migrating your website may prove more effective than addressing these issues within your current system. For example, when online gardening retailer Willemse needed a more flexible, mobile-friendly ecommerce platform, it migrated to Shopify and doubled its website loading speed on launch day, while measuring a 10% boost in organic traffic (SEO) the following quarter.
Migrations can be risky. Not only is there the possibility that you harm your SEO performance but there is also a risk that your new content or site structure doesn’t resonate with your audience or that your new CMS doesn’t fulfill all your needs. Addressing these potential pitfalls helps minimize your overall risk during the migration process.
SEO risks fall into one of the three major categories:
If both the old and new versions of your website are accessible simultaneously on the internet, it can create confusion for search engines, potentially causing a decline in search engine rankings as they struggle to determine the authoritative version of a page.
When launching a new site, you need to configure it to be immediately crawlable to search engines. If your URLs change, you must inform search engines of the new URLs to avoid the risk of your site disappearing from search results and losing organic traffic.
If your new site’s content is not search engine optimized, search engines may perceive it as lower quality than the previous version or have a weaker understanding of the website’s content, potentially resulting in a loss of rankings.
An SEO site migration checklist includes three sections: one for preparation tasks, one for final tasks just before the migration, and one for post-migration. Here’s a breakdown of what each section should encompass:
The goal before migration is to establish SEO performance benchmarks, plan implementation of SEO best practices, and gather site data for backup and comparison purposes. Typically, you want to complete this list two to six weeks before the migration to allow enough time to collect benchmark data and prepare the documentation and tools:
These are the last steps before pressing the metaphorical big red button and launching your new website. Complete these steps on the staging version of your new site:
Perform these tasks as soon as your new site is live, ideally within 48 hours, to avoid crawlability issues:
Understanding the intricacies of SEO and how they play into website migration is a task that often requires the expertise of the finest SEO agency. These agencies specialize in seamlessly integrating SEO best practices into every aspect of the migration process, ensuring that your site maintains its current SEO standings and potentially even improves them. When considering a migration, partnering with a premier SEO agency can be a game-changer, offering peace of mind and a guarantee of professionalism. Their experiences in handling complex migrations mean they can anticipate and mitigate risks, ensuring a smoother transition for your website.
Yes, because neglecting SEO in a website migration can lead to a drop in search engine rankings, loss of organic traffic, and potential visibility issues.
The server processing time for a website migration typically ranges from one to 24 hours, depending on the server and site size. However, SEO preparations should start six weeks before the migration and continue six weeks afterward to ensure a smooth transition.
Website migration costs vary based on the type of website, scope of changes, and hosting. Paying for expert assistance from SEO or web development experts typically constitutes the largest expense in a migration. Managing the transition yourself can be cost-effective, while hiring a provider can be considerably more expensive.
